PHYSICAL STANDARDS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25384, 16 November 1943, Page 6

PHYSICAL STANDARDS

DECLINE ARRESTED BY WAR COMMANDER TUNNEY’S VIEWS (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Nov. 15. Three hundred and fifty Wellington school teachers are attending refresher courses in physical training for three days, during which the schools are closed. At the opening of the course this morning they were addressed by Commander J. J. (Gene) Tunney, who said he was inclined to think that in recent years the Anglo' Saxon people had been on the down grade physically, as was indicated by the fact that 53 per cent, of the men in the first United States drafts were rejected as physically unfit, which was a disgrace, but the war was rectifying this. America had produced many record-breakers in athletics, but had been breeding stars, for every one of whom there were 1000 content to watch. As the officer in charge of physical education in the United States Navy, he did not collect a bunch of star athletes as the nucleus of his organisation, but men .scientifically trained in physical education or medicine, and there were now 7000 fully-trained instructors, many of them with university degrees. When they started there were 300,000 men in the navy; now there were 3,000,000, and every one of these had had physical instruction from an expert. “The army slept while we were doing this, and when they woke up they discovered that we had all the instructors,” he said. Mr L. J. McDonald, on behalf of the Education Board, said it would not have been fair to the teachers to have held the courses in holiday time. The resulting benefits would more than compensate for the three school days that were lost.

Dr C. E. Beeby, Director of Education, said there were now 70 full-time instructors. He would not be happy until every school had its hall or gymnasium where games could be carried on regardless of the weather, but in present circumstances such an addition had to wait. A similar refresher course is also in progress in the Hutt Valley.